(2021) Harpers Bizarre – Come to the Sunshine: The Complete Warner Brothers Recordings


Review:
Short-lived sunshine pop group Harpers Bizarre weren’t around for long, but for a brief window in the late ’60s, they recorded and released new material at a rapid clip. The group scored only a few hits, but their best work ranks alongside the Association, the Left Banke, Chad & Jeremy, and other champions of baroque psychedelia from this specific pocket of rock & roll history. Come to the Sunshine collects the band’s first four albums as well as several B-sides and non-album tracks from each session. The group’s first and biggest hit was a cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy),” which producer Lenny Waronker and Harpers Bizarre reworked under the heavy influence of the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations.” Layered vocal harmonies and chamber pop instrumentation gave the band’s version of the song a unique appeal, and those elements earmarked much of their early output. Harpers Bizarre released two albums in 1967, their debut Feelin’ Groovy and its follow-up Anything Goes. Both were overflowing with giddy Tin Pan Alley melodies, playful arrangements of strings and woodwinds, and the softer side of AM radio pop songwriting. The group often worked with songwriters Harry Nilsson and Randy Newman, and their influence creeps in more by the time of third album The Secret Life of Harpers Bizarre. Lazy, strolling pop tunes like “I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise” take on the same unserious approach as Nilsson’s output from that time, adding in ambitious orchestral arrangements to enhance the band’s commercial appeal. By the time of 1969’s Harpers Bizarre 4, they had all but abandoned their naïve, squeaky-clean sound from just a few years earlier. Instead, their last album (not including subsequent partial reunions in the ’70s) was a set of greasy rock & roll and hippy takes on soul, complete with slide guitar from Ry Cooder. The quick evolution from the lighthearted fun of the first album to the acid-dazzled bliss of songs like “Witchi Tai To” in just two years is even more striking when placed in the chronological context of their complete discography on Come to the Sunshine. Almost all of the late-’60s acts later classified as sunshine pop never rose much beyond relative obscurity, but Harpers Bizarre left behind a wealth of incredible songs that morphed quickly between styles. Come to the Sunshine exposes a catalog full of hidden gems in every phase of the band’s fast-burning career.





Track Listing:

CD 1: Feelin’ Groovy (Warner Bros. LP WS 1697, 1967)
01.Come to the Sunshine
02.Happy Talk
03.C'mon Love
04.Raspberry Rug
05.The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)
06.The Debutante’s Ball
07.Happyland
08.Peter and the Wolf
09.I Can Hear the Darkness
10.Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear
11.Lost My Love Today
12.Bye, Bye, Bye

CD 2: Anything Goes (Warner Bros. LP WS 1716, 1967)
01.This Is Only the Beginning
02.Anything Goes
03.Two Little Babes in the Wood
04.The Biggest Night of Her Life
05.Pocketful of Miracles
06.Snow
07.Chattanooga Choo Choo
08.Hey, You in the Crowd
09.Louisiana Man
10.Milord
11.Virginia City
12.Jessie
13.You Need a Change
14.High Coin
15.Malibu U
16.Cotton Candy Sandman (Sandman’s Coming)

CD 3: The Secret Life of Harpers Bizarre (Warner Bros. LP WS 1739, 1968)
01.Look to the Rainbow
02.Battle of New Orleans
03.When I Was a Cowboy
04.Sentimental Journey (Interlude)
05.Sentimental Journey
06.Las Mananitas
07.Bye, Bye, Bye/Vine Street
08.Me, Japanese Boy (I Love You)
09.(I’ll Build A) Stairway to Paradise (Interlude)
10.(I’ll Build A) Stairway to Paradise
11.Green Apple Tree
12.Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat
13.I Love You, Mama (Interlude)
14.I Love You, Mama
15.Funny How Love Can Be
16.Mad
17.Look to the Rainbow (Reprise)
18.The Drifter
19.The Drifter (Reprise)
20.Both Sides Now
21.Small Talk

CD 4: Harpers Bizarre 4 (Warner Bros. LP WS 1784, 1969)
01.Soft Soundin’ Music
02.Knock on Wood
03.Witchi Tai To
04.Hard to Handle
05.When the Band Begins to Play
06.Something Better
07.Blackbird
08.I Love You, Alice B. Toklas
09.There’s No Time Like Today
10.All Through the Night
11.Cotton Candy Sandman
12.Leaving on a Jet Plane
13.Poly High
14.If We Ever Needed the Lord Before


Media Report:
Genre: pop
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits